Porch sitting

My sweetie and I are trying to perfect the art of porch sitting. We have three porches attached to our 1875 Victorian home in Navasota, Texas: a downstairs front porch, a back porch, and an upstairs porch. It is the upstairs porch where we sit and have morning coffee that brings us the most pleasure these days.

We count the trucks, cars, SUVs, motorcycles, bicycles  and people on foot to determine which is the most popular form of transportation. Answer: pickup trucks are three times more popular than anything else on the street, and Ford 150s are the most favored although Ram and Tacoma are gaining popularity.

We also pay attention to who's going to work, taking their kids to school, making a run to the grocery store; who's out for exercise and who's out to play. In a small town everyone is supposed to know everyone else's business, so we're just trying to keep up.

But there's more to do than counting vehicles and people watching. Yesterday, for example, we noticed the wasps are coming back. Last summer we had a slew of wasps that built nests under our eaves and between the windowpanes and screens. I'm not kidding--we easily had a dozen nests connected to our 2-story house. I really didn't want to see another dozen replace the ones that winter destroyed.

My introduction to wasps occurred when I was around five years old. My two brothers and I discovered a hive of hornets under the roof of a neighbor's porch. My older brother Stone charged in and poked the nest with a stick. In those days, I'd follow my older brother anywhere, so I ran up the porch steps as he retreated. The hornets flew at me and despite my trying to bat them away, I got stung on my neck. My younger brother Mark watched and decided to stay as far away as he could. Is it any surprise he grew up to be the smartest?

My sweetie remembers being stung as well when he was climbing a tree and upset a nest of yellow jackets. He was stung on his head, his back, and his arms before he flung himself from the branches and ran like the wind to escape those flying warriors.

We talked yesterday about the returning wasps and what we could do to deter them. After much discussion, we decided it might be best that we give them a wide birth.  Wasps, you see, eat those other pesky insects, like spiders. I'd rather put up with a few wasps than face a Black Widow spider...  which wasps love to eat as much as I love Blue Bell ice cream. Just saying.

High School Football

Despite threatening rain clouds, homecoming at Navasota High School brought out the entire town. Alumni as far back as the Class of '35 were honored (that's 80 amazing years!), and the bleachers were filled with people of all ages dressed in blue and white attire.

While the rain stayed way, memories of my own high school senior year homecoming flooded my mind. Navasota's Rattler Nation includes a marching band complete with a majorette and six flag girls, the Diamonette drill team, a slew of cheerleaders, and no less than 54 football players who suited up for the game. Back in my day, the green and white fighting Huntsville Hornets had no drill team, no flag girls, only six cheerleaders, and maybe 20 players.

But the hometown spirit was the same: Friday night football in Texas rules!

In the 1960s, we girls wore mums to homecoming. We'd keep them afterwards, pinned to our mirrors or walls where they turned brown and dried to fragile artifacts. My mind conjured the images of those big fat white flowers, and I thought how times have changed.

The corsages I saw Friday night were made of artificial flowers and accessorized with bling on steroids. Lots of different styles, too. The style I'd consider traditional was worn on the left shoulder, but oh my gosh, the glittered streamers flowed from shoulder to ankle. There were also corsages as necklaces, as armbands, and the most popular: as garters worn on the thigh. The garters were favored by the cheerleaders in their min-skirts, as well as spectators in blue jean shorts.

How times have changed.

Even though the 1960s claimed Drugs, Sex, and Rock 'Roll as its banner in American culture, Huntsville High School officials held tightly to the values of the 1950s, and cheerleader skirts were required to hit mid-calf, covering darn near all of their legs. Even if flower-clad garters had been available (and trust me, they were not), L.K. Westmoreland would never have allowed the cheerleaders on the field had they dared to wear them.

Confession: Ronnie and I did not stay for the entire game. The Rattlers were ahead 42-3 at halftime, and we felt confident the hometown team could win without our cheering from the stands. We bought "Navasota Rattlers Get Ready" t-shirts because we heard that the Rattlers will probably go to District and we will want to be in the stands to witness their win. We watched the crowning of Rebecca White as homecoming queen and listened to the Class of '35 and the Class of '45 sing the school song. While most folks stayed for the rest of the game, hollering and stomping and cheering the Rattlers as the second half began, we sneaked out.

While I  waited for Ronnie to get the car from the crowded parking lot, I sang my school song softy to myself ("Oh, Huntsville High School, hear us singing our love and loyalty to thee beneath the shadows of the pine trees..."). We moseyed over to the Wrangler steak house on Hwy 6 and talked about how much we love this small town.


What are your high school homecoming memories?